by Rj Barker
Finding me instead.
The moment the first rider died I leapt from my saddle.
Forget Voniss is pregnant.
Forget the child.
Save her life.
Knocking her from her mount’s saddle, trusting in her years of riding to save her from too great an injury or being trampled. Don’t think about that. My shield coming up and the blood of Voniss’s lady rattling against it like Birthstorm hail. Impact: hard. Blades punching through the shield, a scream of pain, my own, as one blade punctures my forearm. The assassin lets loose their blades—I don’t see it, but it is what I would do as they are wedged in the shield—and carries on, running over the shield as I fall backwards. See a foot. Grab it. Feel the jerk on my arm as I pull the assassin to a halt, stopping them going after Voniss. I fall. A shuddering impact against the ground. No time to catch my breath. Back up to my feet. Blade out, my left arm useless due to the weight of the shield pinned to it. The assassin spins, body swathed in black material, their only weapon a small eating knife. A moment where they take everything in. Know they have failed, and the assassin turns on their heel and runs, twisting and spinning as arrows hiss over my shoulders and around me, reaching out for the killer, but they will not find a target. The assassin has already disappeared.
“The simple invisibility,” I say to myself. “This was no amateur, no poorly trained child.”
It had been someone like me.
And despite the danger, despite the way this could upset everything at Ceadoc, I could not stop a small shiver of excitement running through me. I had thought I was the last.
But they were like me.
A scream shook me from my reverie. A woman’s scream, a shout of agony and fear.
“The baby! It comes, the baby comes!”
Interlude
This is a dream.
This is where it starts.
It is a hot day. The sun is as warm on Merela’s skin as her heart is in her breast. The lizards trill and flit and move with the same intemperate, shivering excitement that flutters in her stomach. The sky is as blue as her finest kilts.
And yet, in the way of dreams, there are impossibilities here: a cloud in the clear sky; a cloud that does and doesn’t exist; a cloud that is black and grey and silver and cold.
It is a cloud of foreknowledge.
She is waiting for him, her golden boy. As golden and warm as the sun, as bright and perfect as the swords and blades her father brings across the Taut Sea. She is waiting in the wood, waiting to dance for him, to dance the old dances he loves, the ones she has spent her life perfecting. She is waiting for him in a clearing which nature has created for them, especially for them, a bed of warm grass and thickly scented flowers, and the scars and casual cruelty of this foreign place can be forgotten in gentleness and laughter and kisses.
She is waiting for the storm, for the cloud to break.
When she sees him she grows, stands on her tiptoes, hands behind her back, smile on her face and the strange feeling and taste of the lip colour, made of sheep fat and crushed petals, on her tongue. Here he is, Vesin ap Garfin, on time as always—but something is wrong.
He carries the storm with him.
He carries the cold rain in the slump of his shoulders. He carries the roll of thunder in his averted eyes. He carries the howl of wind in a voice that does not greet her.
Her heart skips a beat.
Her stomach sinks.
Behind Vesin are his older brothers, Gart and Bolin, all swagger walk and hard face. Fists around sword hilts, brows like caves for their small cruel eyes. They are these foreign lands made flesh.
They push Vesin forwards. His golden curls hang limp. His eyes are red-rimmed and damp with tears, his mouth is unable to lift itself into his summer smile. Pain is coming, pain for everyone.
The swelling of unseen clouds. The atmospheric pressure of agony.
“Tell the bitch, Vesin.”
Her stomach flips like an acrobat. Clouds cover the sun.
“Tell me what, Vesin?”
Gart, the older, pushes Vesin on the shoulder.
“Tell the bitch.”
“I …” but no more words come from him. Even though she knows what those words will be, dreads them. Is almost unable to believe he could think them, never mind say them.
“Dead gods,” says Bolin, “he’s done with you, right? Had his way, got up your skirts and now he’s done. Right, Vesin?”
Don’t do this.
“Vesin?” she says. He nods, can’t speak, can’t talk. Doesn’t want to say it.
“Sorry,” he says.
“But, Vesin—”
“He’s done with you now,” says Gart. “Take your foreign ways back to your lands where they belong.” He grabs his brother by the scruff of the neck, pulling him around, pushing him away from her.
And the words are in her mouth. She wants to stop them because now, in the way of dreams, she can feel the power and danger in them. Feel how they are as lethal as any weapon and she sees the long trail of pain and death that loosing those words will set her upon.
Wake me.
Girton.
Wake me.
But this is a dream, a mummers’ play of times past, and it can no more be altered or stopped than a charging mount. She says the words. She says them in a voice so small she wonders if her past self heard her dream self beg them not to be said.
“I carry your child, Vesin.”
The brothers stop. Vesin turns and she sees it. She sees it with relief and with thanks. Joy. A moment of joy crossing his face and it is as bright and blue and wonderful as a yearslife sky before the storms block out the sun.
“Truly?” he says, as if she would ever lie to him.
Wake me.
“Truly,” she says. And he leaves his brothers, walks toward her. Takes her soft hands in his soft hands.
Behind Vesin, Bolin shakes his head.
“Come on, Vesin, her bastard is no concern of yours. We’ll sort that out.”
But he is not going to leave—go—she can see it in his eyes—just go—he is as certain as she is that this is right. And, because they are young and they are in love and they are—stupid—full of the belief that they are in the right, Vesin turns.
“We will marry. Her father is rich, we need the money, Bolin.”
Bolin steps forward.
“It’s not about money, Vesin. Look at her, look at her skin, the colour. That is shame, do you understand? We’re an old Maniyadoc family, pure. She brings shame on the ap Garfin line.”
Wake me.
“I’m third in line, no one will—”
“Bolin,” says Gart to his brother, “look at him. He’s like a dog with its own vomit. He’ll keep going back to her. You know he will.”
“We’ll go away,”—no—Vesin steps forward. “No one needs me, Gart. We’ll go away.”
Gart steps forward. Puts a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“Vesin, she’s right. We don’t have much coin. And if you run off with his daughter, then her father, the merchant, well, he’ll want recompense off our father, won’t he?”
“I’ll leave a note,” she says. “My father will just—”
“Shut up, bitch.” He doesn’t even look at her. “And you’ll marry her, Vesin, make her halfhedge child one of us. It’ll always be out there somewhere, out there with a claim.”
“Gart …” She can hear it, the fear. She can hear the fear in Vesin’s voice when he says his brother’s name.
Girton, wake me.
“We can’t have that, Vesin. Do you understand?”
“Father will …”
“… agree, Vesin. Father already agrees.” He pulls back so he can look into his younger brother’s eyes. “Do you understand?”
Don’t say it.
“She is having my child.” He steps away from his brother.
Don’t say it.
“I won’t leave her.” His hand goes to his sword.
Don’t say it.
“I love her.”
His blade comes out, slow, like cloth in water, drifting through the air into the first position. Her hands come up to her face as she is confronted by the violence her family carry and trade in, the violence she has always been hidden from. And Gart, does he look sad or amused? She can’t tell. He becomes a monster, a hedgelord, all anger and teeth. Vesin lunges, a perfect strike, just like they teach them in the dirty ground outside the longhouse.
Wake me.
She is screaming.
Wake me.
Gart is fast. Before the lunge is anywhere near him, he moves, dipping to one side, quick as current while Vesin still moves in slow motion. Gart’s stabsword slides out of its sheath and he steps forward, under the guard, and guts his brother in one strike. Vesin doesn’t scream, or if he does she can’t hear it over her own terror. Gart is quick, the blade pulsing back and forth, stab stab stab, and Vesin falls.
“You were right, Vesin,” he says. “You are third in line and no one cares about you.” Bolin is holding her tightly. In the way of dreams he never moved, he is simply there.
“What about her, Gart, shall we have some fun with her?”
“One of us dirtying himself with a foreigner is bad enough, Bolin. No. I’ll cut the child from her and be done with it.”
And the blade bites into her stomach.
This is where it starts, the pain.
In a dream.
Chapter 4
They named Voniss’s child Aydon and held a celebration for his safe birth.
But I was not there.
The smell of grass is a strong one. It is not something many think about. It fills my mind because I do not want to think about anything else. The smell is strong and cloying, especially when it is caught by a tent, lucent blades crushed by the boards beneath my knees, fermented by the heat of yearslife and concentrated by the enclosing canvas and rags until it becomes almost unbearable. It is stronger than sweat, stronger than armour, stronger than mount dung and piss.
But it is not stronger than death. What is?
In the stories of the days of balance, for every death there is a birth. And maybe Rufra had brought us closer to those fabled days for it had been that way in the case of Aydon. He had come into the world, squalling and strong despite being born early as the cavalry of war rode around him.
And back in Rufra’s camp, Feorwic, my sweet and smiling apprentice, had lost her life protecting her friend. I had always thought it would be my life that would be spent in protection of Rufra’s family. I had never considered it could be hers.
I sat in a dark tent before the table that held her body: So small, so slight. Had you not been able to smell death you may have thought the black and red flag on the table covered a small feast, not a small life. Twice I had reached out to remove the flag and bare her face, but I could not bring myself to do it. Outside I heard the clash of cymbals as Benliu, priest of Torelc, danced to drive away hedgings and the misfortune they may bring young Aydon and I wondered where he had been when Feorwic gave her life.
“It is not your fault, Girton.”
My master, despite her crutches, had come in so silently I had not noticed. Now that I knew she was there I could feel her behind me, her skin emanating warmth soaked up from the blazing sun.
“But it is my fault, Master. You told me I should not have brought her, that she would never make an assassin.”
A pause, a footstep, the creak of board under the point of a crutch and she stood near enough to me that I could feel her breathing.
“And I was wrong in that, Girton. When the moment came she proved me entirely wrong. She would have made a fine assassin. She had the spine for it. The will.”
“Tell me what happened, Master.”
“Again?”
“Yes.”
“Girton, her killer is dead, rehashing events will not—”
“Tell me.”
“Very well.” She let out a sigh and I heard a chair creak as she lowered her weight into it. “Feorwic was playing with Anareth and Vinwulf.”
“They were not guarded?”
“Celot guarded them, but you know what he is like. A royal gives him a command and he obeys without thinking.”
“Who commanded him?”
“Girton, there is no mystery here. Yesterday a concerted move was made against Rufra and it failed.”
I placed a hand on the edge of the flag, felt the slick material against my fingertips.
“Who commanded him?”
“Anareth commanded Celot. She sent him to pick flowers.”
“It is fortuitous.”
“They are children. The assassin could have been waiting all day for his opportunity.” She waited but I did not reply and so she carried on. “When Celot was gone he came, dressed as one of Rufra’s guard. A guard’s body was found by the stream, hidden in the reeds.”
“Where is the assassin’s corpse?”
“In another tent. You can see it if you wish.”
I nodded.
“I will, later. Carry on, Master.”
“He approached with his blade out and Feorwic challenged him.” I could see it in my mind’s eye: little Feorwic, her small knife in her hand, her face full of indignation. A child, but still brave when in a position many adults would quail from. “He raised his blade to her, attacked. She dodged, even managed to cut his leg before he stabbed her, caught her mid-spin. I think she was trying for the maiden’s pass. Anareth screamed, which brought Celot running. By the time he was there the attacker was dead. Young Vinwulf had used Feorwic’s distraction to cut him down.”
“And you find nothing suspicious in this?”
“No, Girton. I do not.”
“A real assassin comes for Voniss, but they send an amateur who can be bested by children for Rufra’s heirs?”
“There are few real assassins, so tell me, who would you have sent one after? The children, or the woman guarded by a small army and you?”
I remained quiet. She was right. I wanted to hurt someone. I could feel it within, that need. A dark tide that wanted to tear at the earth, to rend and burn. I wanted there to be a culprit near, someone I could blame for Feorwic’s death and, in a way, there was. As if reading my mind, my master spoke again.
“It is not your fault, Girton. Do not feel guilty for what is beyond your control or knowing.” I reached out and removed the flag from Feorwic’s face, but she was gone. What lay before me was only flesh, it had no life and no humour. Where the warmth of her laugh should be within me was a cold place. I pulled the flag further back. “They will give her to Xus tonight,” said my master.
“No,” I said, turning her body to see the wound on her back. “I do not want her to feed the pigs. I will bury her like they do in the far lands. I will put her by a tree. She always loved the trees, she dreamed of seeing a forest one day. I told her I would take her to one.”
“People will think you odd.”
“Master, I am dressed as a dancing skeleton.”
A quiet laugh from behind me and I heard her stand.
I studied the small body, the wound in Feorwic’s back bothered me but I did not know why. Given the events described it made a sort of sense, caught mid-twist by a thrust from a sword. It was possible the wound had been made that way. It was an awkward strike, but maybe it was not the wound that bothered me. Maybe my master was right and it was simply guilt. Suddenly, I could bear to look at her no longer. Something inside swelled and if I looked at her a moment longer it would burst, a dark sea, sweeping from me to wash away the pain. Without replacing her covering I turned, finding my master stood before me, barring my way.
“I will miss her,” I said, and my voice began to break. My master stepped forward, taking me in her arms like she had done when I was a child.
“I know, Girton, I will too. I know.”
“I want to see where it happened.”
“You should go and spend so
me time with Aydor.”
“I am not in the mood for Aydor.” I pulled myself away.
“You never are, until you are with him.”
“He is an idiot.”
“He is your friend and today you could do with a friend.” I bowed my head.
“Imagine you had told me that twenty years ago, Master, that Aydor was my friend. I would have thought you mad.”
“Well.” She brought her hands up, making two “L” shapes which framed her face in the gesture of surprise. “I am talking to a man dressed as a skeleton.”
It is strange how a moment’s touch and kind words can fill an emptiness, though it is only ever temporary.
“I would still see where Feorwic died. And I would talk to Celot, Vinwulf and Anareth.”
“Very well. Go to the copse where the river bends.” She pointed out through the back of the tent, but I did not follow her finger as it would have meant looking at Feorwic’s corpse again. “Celot and Vinwulf will be no problem, but Anareth, well …”
“She is hurt?”
“Not in body, no. But she has not spoken since the attack and clings to Voniss as if her life depends on it.”
“I will speak to her still, we have always got on.”
“Give her time, Girton.”
I nodded and left the tent, heading to the copse where Feorwic had died. A peculiar numbness had settled over me, the type I had not felt since my master stopped cutting the Landsman’s Leash into my flesh nine years ago. The heat of the day did not touch me and the singing of the flying lizards sounded like nothing but unpleasant noise. Even the cheery gurgle of the river brought me no joy. I could see why the children had been left to play here. The River Dallad was wide and looped back to almost touch its own banks. In a few years this copse would be an island but for now it made a place where the children could easily be protected. The only way in by land was a thin path that was easily guarded.